The more established or successful a team is probably equates to less chance for young players to break through though injuries can throw an opportunity ; if we did get relegated then arguably the academy becomes more important, if the club is run sensibly

Chelsea seem to have the run of the best talent in South London so it’s good to offer competition. Being a level 1 - should make it easier to keep academy players

Academy 1 makes it easier to sign players and means that you can easily poach players from non Academy 1 clubs and makes it harder to have out own best academy players poached from other clubs. I don't agree with the EPPP but now it is there, we need to use it to our own advantage. It's vital for a London club as there are already 5 other Academy 1 clubs in London.

It's expensive so it's surprising so many non PL clubs are on the list; Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Blackburn, Burnley, Brighton, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Derby County, Everton, Fulham, Leeds United, Leicester City, Liverpool, Newcastle United, Manchester City, Manchester United, Middlesbrough, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest, Reading, Southampton, Stoke City, Sunderland, Tottenham, West Brom, West Ham and Wolves.

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

In theory yes.

In practice, only time will tell.

So many players seam to move around the academies (Eze as an example) before finding a home.

Brentford have done away with their academy.... will be interesting to see if that's a better model in the long term

Indeed!

Jarrett seemed to be the main man in terms of our youth recruitment and it was well publicised that he was pivotal in the recruitment of so many of the current U18 squad, which has been phenomenally successful.

By poaching Jarrett, Man Utd clearly intend on cornering the South London market in terms of up and coming talent.

That is interesting to know Teddy, I wasn’t aware of that.

Clearly though United know exactly what they are doing by poaching Jarrett from us. The reports at the time of his appointment for United all commented on how influential and successful Jarrett had been with our recruitment of our current U18 squad.

Just reading some of the reports again it seems Jarrett had been with Palace for about ten years and was either Head of Academy recruitment or Assistant Head (dependent on which report you read) he was also the co-founder and director of football for Lambeth Tigers. Clearly hugely connected in London and the South and no doubt why United have appointed him as their lead scout for the ‘South of England’.

This is all highly irritating.

Hopefully effective plans in response are afoot.

London isn't the domain of fecking Man U......fecking Beckham should have been a Spurs player.

Edited by Stirlingsays (06 Oct 2021 8.56am)

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